Asia through the eyes of a wild child

Tag Archives: nature

Ida woke up in panic, she thought the bed bugs had caught her since she had bites all over and they kept popping up. She calmed down a bit when the dude in the reception said it is probably just sand flies. I have them as well. The price you have to pay to be in paradise.

Koh Rong has the ability to calm anyone down. There are no roads and only a few dive centers, restaurants and guest houses. The surroundings are absolutely stunning and it still got the charming vibe of a tropical island far away, even though it is close to the fuzz in famous beach town Sihanoukville.

The kids collect bottles floating up on the beach, smash them flat as pancakes with wooden bats and store in bags to ship of. The men are playing pool, they own fishing boats but I never saw them being used. A few dreadlock backpackers hang around the dive center or in the big sofas in one of the few bars along the beach. The activity most noticeable is the frequent noise of hammers, they are building on every house on the beach strip. Koh rong will not stay the same for long.

Because of the epic fail finding Heart Break Hotel and the 7 km beach yesterday we had booked a long tail boat to take us there today. Davy is only 24 years old, borned and raised in Phnom Phen. Escaping poverty he went and worked on fishing boats along the south coast and learned everything about the sea. Today he owns 3 boats named “Khmere Davy 1”, “Khmere Davy 2” and “Khmere Davy 3” and a little shop. We went with “Khmere Davy 2”, it was a beautiful long tail boat, the sun was shining and the australian couple who joined us were quite desent people. They both taught contemporary art to upper secondary school kids. Our sandflies felt like a minor problem when they told us about the soap eating rat they were sharing bungalow with.

We stopped fishing at 3 different places, I forgot how much fun it is fishing, especially when you get fish in rainbow colours every 5 minutes, compared to 1 “boring” aborre per hour, as is usually the case in Sweden. It is a cool feeling to get of at a deserted island, cock the fish you just caught yourself over open fire and eat it with your bare hands. We were sitting on a rock out in the sea eating, it must have looked hilarious, but there were so many ants on the island, if you stod still for more than 5 seconds you had 50 of them passing your knees heading towards I don’t know what. Ant auto bahn – like in my room last semester. So we were sitting on a rock in the water looking like proper western tourists.

Long beach was amazing, water so blue and white sand dynes so deserted it could heal anyones ailments. I am really glad we made the effort to go and see it because rumor has it that the 7 km deserted beach will soon be gone. The land is sold, resorts, golf courts, waterlands and a casino are planned to be built in 2013. Koh Rong is expected to be the next Koh Samui. Call me a hipster but I hated Koh Samui. The beach is packed with westerners eating fries, swimming in their own Hawaiian tropic oil and instagramming photos which should have the tag #tomuchofeverything. No thank you.